


Pack All Your Troubles

by CharlotteK



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Advice, Arthur Shappey - Freeform, Cabin Pressure - Freeform, Martin Crieff - Freeform, Pack All Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag, Sad!Martin at first though, Yellow Car, happy!Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteK/pseuds/CharlotteK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin's had a hell of a day. Until Arthur comes over to make everything all better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pack All Your Troubles

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag," Martin sings quietly to himself as he hauls a heavy box of books up the rickety staircase. "...and smile, smile, smile."  _If only it was that easy_ , he thinks with an internal sigh. He peeks around the box in his arms to watch where he steps as he takes his time with each stair. Now he understands why old Mrs. Conrad and her husband haven't been down in the cellar for ages. The cellar, which Martin considers to be the bowels of the house, looks like it once had great potential to become a lively and comfortable basement. Obviously, though, nobody made plans to make this a reality, and now Martin finds himself trying to climb up seventeen rotting two-by-fours with gaps between them big enough for him to fall through, with only a dirt floor to land on should he lose his footing and come crashing down. With a thirty pound box of books, nonetheless.

"Oi! You're not gettin' paid to dawdle!" Mrs. Conrad calls from the top of the stairs.

Martin looks up at her quickly, and tries to hide his frustration. "I'm coming," he answers. "I'm just being careful with these stairs. They are rather unsafe." He leans against the wall for balance, and wonders why there isn't a handrail.

"Well hurry it up, will ye? That's the thing about you moving men: you waste time so you can get paid for staying longer." She turns away, and Martin hears her footsteps heading for the kitchen.

Martin sighs. "Yes, ma'am," he says to nobody now. "I'm- Ahhh!" With a crash, the middle step gives way and snaps, and he tumbles backwards. The next thing Martin knows, he's laying in the dirt, and at least fifteen books are strewn about the floor. The back of his head starts to pound, and he sits up dizzily. He shakes the dirt out of his hair, and groans. Mrs. Conrad's heavy feet stomp quickly across the floor upstairs, and she thrusts her fat neck through the narrow doorway.  _That must be another reason she never comes down here,_  Martin decides.  _She's too fat to get through the door!_  Mrs. Conrad's eyes boggle out at Martin, and for a moment, she reminds him of a fish.

"What the hell 'appened?" She shrieks.

"Uh, well, you see-" Martin babbles, starting to panic. "It's just that those stairs really, and I mean  _really_  aren't safe, and that one happened to snap when I stepped on it, and then-"

"Pick up those books," Mrs. Conrad interrupts. "and get out of my house!"

Martin stands up and crosses his arms over his chest, ready to defend himself, when Mr. Conrad shuffles over to his wife's side.

"What happened here?" he asks with a soft voice as he turns to look at her.

"Well, Andy," Mrs. Conrad answers. "I'll tell ye what happened. We let that- that-  _idiot_  into our house to move the stuff up from the cellar! And look what 'e did: he's destroyed the stairs, and ruined my books!"

"Are you sure these count as stairs?" Martin asks, adding some heat to his voice. Mrs. Conrad's face grows redder than it was before.

"Why, you-"

"Hold it, hold it!" Andy interrupts, putting up a hand. He looks down at Martin. "Are you awright, Mr. Crieff? Did ye get hurt?"

Martin shakes his head. "I think I'm okay," he says.

Andy nods. "Can ye finish the job?"

"No way!" Mrs. Conrad hisses. "I ain't gonna have him go 'round and wreck anything else! We'll just call Mark to come and do it." She gives Andy a look that could boil water, and Andy backs away.

It isn't until Martin gets to the highway when he realizes that he wasn't paid for his five-hour job at the Conrads'.

* * *

 

"How did it go?" Mandy, one of the four agricultural students living there, asks when Martin opens the front door of Parkside Terrace. Mandy's bubbly personality and smiling face sort of remind Martin of Arthur, and he envies the young girl's eternal optimism and energy. He wonders where he can get himself some.

"It was... it was fine. Just fine," Martin grumbles, hanging up his coat in the porch. Mandy twirls her long, brown hair around her finger and quirks an eyebrow.

"It doesn't sound like it went well," she says. "You seem a little cranky."

Martin shakes his head. "Alright, it really didn't go well," he says quietly. "But I don't want to talk about it right now, okay?" With that, he bounds up the stairs to his attic, and shuts his bedroom door behind him. He glances at the clock on the wall. It's only four in the afternoon, and he's got no more jobs scheduled for the day. Now what? He leans against the door, and takes a deep breath. On his night table, a small stack of envelopes glare at him. Unpaid bills, he remembers with a frown. Phone bill, electric bill, rent. He could have made enough to pay at least his phone bill if Mrs. Conrad hadn't kicked him out of her house. He rubs at his lower back, where a dull pain starts to gnaw at him.

He finds himself sliding slowly down, and he crumples to the floor. He curls his knees close to his chest, and rest his forehead on his knees.  _It's not fair,_  he thinks.  _It's not fair that I have to live here with these kids who are going to have a better life than I ever will. And it's not fair that I didn't get paid at all for my work today, and that I actually did get hurt when that step fell through. And it's really not fair that I don't ever get paid to fly for MJN..._  He lifts his head with disgust when he remembers. He has to wake up at five tomorrow morning to leave the airfield by six, and then sit in the flight deck until they reach Singapore. He scolds himself for almost forgetting about such a long flight.

When his lower back starts to protest, Martin gets up and flops down on his bed, where he can feel bad for himself in relative comfort. He pulls his quilt over his shoulders, and tries to forget about what happened at work today. He starts thinking about flying with MJN, and spending time with Arthur and Douglas, but that only reminds him of how many times he failed his pilot's test, and how much money he spent on trying to achieve this dream of his. He starts to wonder if should never have tried becoming a pilot in the first place. An overall feeling of sadness starts to seep into his chest, and soon, he can't hold back the tears that threaten to stream down his face. He knows that he really shouldn't feel bad for himself, because he's trying to make ends meet, and he's trying to make a living.

"I'm trying," he whispers to himself. "That's all I can do." He cries quietly into his pillow so that Mandy and the others downstairs won't hear him, and soon, he starts to drift off.

He awakens to a soft knocking on his door.

"Martin?" It's Mandy's voice on the other side of the wall.

"Yeah?"

"Someone's here to see you."

Martin kicks off his quilt and rubs at his eyes. They still feel heavy and tired from crying. He takes a quick peek at his mirror, and hopes that whoever's downstairs won't notice how red they are.

He comes into the kitchen to see Arthur Shappey sitting at the table, idly playing with a rubber band between his fingers.

"Oh! Hello, Arthur," Martin says, honestly happy to see him.

"Hey, Skip!" Arthur stretches the rubber band a bit too far, and it shoots across the kitchen. "Uh, how are you doing?"

Martin pulls out a chair and sits down across from Arthur. "I'm okay," he replies, not exactly lying, but not really telling the truth, either. "What brings you here?"

"Oh yes! Mum said that you left this on board Gerti the other day." Arthur reaches into his pocket and pulls out Martin's mobile phone.

"I didn't even notice it was missing!" Martin replies, surprised. "Thank you, Arthur."

"Oh, no problem, Skip." He pauses. "Say, Skip, your eyes look rather red. And sleepy. Were you having a nap?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"I'm sorry! Do you want me to go so you can keep having your nap?" Martin smiles at Arthur's concern.

"There's no need, Arthur. I'm already awake."

"Skip," Arthur says, this time with a more serious voice. "Were you... were you crying?"

Before Martin can stop himself, he tells Arthur about his mishap at the Conrads', and how he fell down the stairs and hurt his head. He mentions Mrs. Conrad and her big, fishy face and nasty temper, and how he didn't get paid for the job and barely had enough money for fuel for the way home. Arthur sits and listens intently, not interrupting once.

"And then," Martin says. "I get home and realize that I have a whole bunch of bills to pay and no way to pay them. Unless, of course, I do two or three big jobs before the end of the month. I don't know, Arthur, it's just not fair. Sometimes I wish I had done something else with my life. I almost feel bad for... for feeling bad."

Arthur says nothing for a moment, and just nods.

"Well," he replies. "Sometimes, life is really,  _really_  hard. And it feels like everything's going wrong. Everyone feels like that, Skip. Even me, sometimes. You'll get another big job soon, I just know it!"

"Thanks, Arthur."

"And you know what else? It's okay to feel down sometimes. Nobody's happy all the time. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you if you're unhappy."

"But you're always so cheerful."

"Well, I'm almost always happy," Arthur replies. "But sometimes, I break. And when that happens, I think about all the things that make me happy. Like Polar Bears. Or camels. Sometimes, I stare out my window and play Yellow Car, even though I'm not even driving. The point is, Skip, that there's nothing wrong with you. And I hope you feel better soon, because you are my friend, and I want to make sure all of my friends are happy."

Martin feels like someone lit a lantern inside him. The warm feeling spreads from the pit of his stomach into his chest, and soon, he's smiling harder than he has in a long time.

"You know, Arthur," he says. "You're right. Thank you. You really, truly are my best friend."

"Ah, it's no problem, Skip." Arthur replies. "How about we go to the cinema or something? It'll take your mind off everything. Or you can just come over to my place and watch a movie."

Martin laughs. "Sounds fantastic!"


End file.
